Annie Hall quotes

View Quote Annie: [about California] It's so clean out here.
Alvy: That's because they don't throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.

View Quote Annie: [voiceover] That was fun. I don't think California is bad at all. It's a drag coming home.
Alvy: [voiceover] A lot of beautiful women. It was fun to flirt.
Annie: [voiceover] I have to face facts. I adore Alvy, but our relationship doesn't seem to work anymore.
Alvy: [voiceover] I'll have the usual trouble with Annie in bed tonight. Why do I need this?
Annie: [voiceover] If only I had the nerve to break up but it would really hurt him.
Alvy: [voiceover] If only I didn't feel guilty asking Annie to move out. It would probably wreck her. But I should be honest.
Annie: Alvy? Let's face it. You know something? I don't think our relationship is working.
Alvy: I know. A relationship, I think, is-is like a shark. You know, it has to constantly move forward or it dies, and I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.

View Quote Annie: Alvy, let's never break up again. I don't wanna be apart.
Alvy: You know Annie, I think we're both much too mature for something like that.
Annie: Living together hasn't been so bad, has it?
Alvy: No, for me it's been terrific, you know...'cause there is just something different about you. I don't know what it is, but it's great.
Annie: You know, I think that if you let me, maybe I could help you have more fun.

View Quote Annie: So I told her about, about the family and about my feelings towards men and about my relationship with my brother. And then she mentioned penis envy. Do you know about that?
Alvy: Me? I'm, I'm one of the few males who suffers from that...
Annie: She said that I was very guilty about my impulses towards marriage and children. And then I remember when I was a kid how I accidently saw my parents making love.
Alvy: Really. All this happened in the first hour? That's amazing. I'm off fifteen years. You know, I have nothing like that.
Annie: I told her my dream and then I cried.
Alvy: Cried? I have never once cried. That's fantastic to me. I whine. I sit and I whine.
Annie: Wait a minute Alvy. In my dream, Frank Sinatra is holding his pillow across my face and I can't breathe...strangling me...
Alvy: No kidding. Oh sure! Because he's a singer and you're a singer. You know, so it's perfect. So you're trying to suffocate yourself. It makes perfect sense. It's a perfect analytic kind of insight.
Annie: She said your name was Alvy Singer.
Alvy: What do you mean? Me?
Annie: Yeah, yeah you. Because in the dream, I break Sinatra's glasses.
Alvy: Sinatra had glasses? You never said Sinatra had glasses. So what are you saying? That I'm suffocating you?...
Annie: Oh and God, Alvy, I did this really terrible thing to him. Because then when he sang, it was in this real high-pitched voice.
Alvy: What did the doctor say?
Annie: Well, she said that I should probably come five times a week. And you know something? I don't think I mind analysis at all. The only question is, is 'Will it change my wife?'
Alvy: Will it change your wife?
Annie: Will it change my life?
Alvy: Yeah, but you said, 'Will it change my wife?'
Annie: No I didn't. I said, 'Will it change my life, Alvy?'
Alvy: [to the camera] She said, 'Will it change my wife?' You heard that, because you were there. So I'm not crazy.
Annie: And then I told her about how I didn't think you'd ever take me really seriously because you don't think that I'm smart enough.
Alvy: Why do you always bring that up? Because I encourage you to take adult education courses? I think it's a wonderful thing. You meet wonderful interesting professors.

View Quote Annie: We never have any fun any more.
Alvy: How can you say that?
Annie: Why not? You're always leaning on me to improve yourself.
Alvy: You're just upset. You must be getting your period.
Annie: I don't get a period. I'm a cartoon character. Can't I be upset once in a while?
Rob: Max, will you forget about Annie? I know lots of women you can date.
Alvy: I don't want to go out with any other women.
Rob: Max, I have got a girl for you. You are going to love her. She's a reporter for Rolling Stone.

View Quote Annie: Well, you are what Grammy Hall would call a 'real Jew.'
Alvy: Thank you.
Annie: Yeah, well, she hates Jews. She thinks they just make money, but let me tell ya, I mean, she's the one. Is she ever, I'm tellin' ya.

View Quote Duane: Can I confess something? I tell you this because, as an artist, I think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving on the road at night I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast, I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. Flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.
Alvy: Right. Well, I have to - I have to go now, Duane, because I, I'm due back on the planet Earth.

View Quote Man in theatre line: We saw the Fellini film last Tuesday. It was not one of his best. It lacks a cohesive structure. You know, you get the feeling that he's not absolutely sure what it is he wants to say. 'Course, I've always felt he was essentially a - a technical film maker. Granted, La Strada was a great film. Great in its use of negative imagery more than anything else. But that simple, cohesive core...
Alvy: I'm gonna have a stroke...What I wouldn't give for a large sock full of manure...He's screaming his opinions in my ear.
Man in theatre line: ...Like all that Juliet of the Spirits or Satyricon... I found it incredibly...indulgent. You know, he really is. He's one of the most indulgent filmmakers. He really is...
Alvy: Key word is indulgent.

View Quote Mrs. Hall: How do you plan to spend the holidays, Mrs. Singer?
Mrs. Singer: We fast.
Mr. Hall: Fast?
Mr. Singer: No food. You know, to atone for our sins.
Mrs. Hall: What sins? I don't understand.
Mr. Singer: To tell you the truth, neither do we.

View Quote Mrs. Singer: He's been depressed. All of a sudden, he can't do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Mrs. Singer: Tell Dr. Flicker. [To the doctor] It's something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding...Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.
Mrs. Singer: What is that your business? [To the doctor] He stopped doing his homework.
Alvy: What's the point?
Mrs. Singer: What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.
Doctor: It won't be expanding for billions of years, yet Alvy. And we've got to try to enjoy ourselves while we're here, huh, huh? Ha, ha, ha.

View Quote Pam: Sex with you is really a Kafka-esque experience.
Alvy: Oh. Thank you.
Pam: I mean that as a compliment.
Alvy: I think, I think there's too much burden placed on the orgasm, you know, to make up for empty areas in life.
Pam: Who said that?
Alvy: It may have been Leopold and Loeb.

View Quote Partgoer #1: I'll take a meeting with you if you'll take a meeting with Freddie.
'Partygoer #2: I took a meeting with Freddie. Freddie took a meeting with Charlie. You take a meeting with him.
Partygoer #1: All the good meetings are taken.

View Quote Pedestrian: Are you on television?
Alvy: No. [After a long pause] Yeah, once in a while...
Pedestrian: What's your name?
Alvy: You wouldn't know. It doesn't matter. What's the difference?
Pedestrian: You're on, uh, the, uh, the Johnny Carson, right?
Alvy: Once in a while, you know...
Pedestrian: What's your name?
Alvy: I-m - I'm uh, I'm Robert Redford.
Pedestrian: Come on.
Alvy: Alvy Singer. It was nice. Thanks very much for everything.
Pedestrian: Hey! Dis is Alvy Singah!
Alvy: Fellas, you know...
Pedestrian: Dis guy's on television!!! Alvy Singer. Right? Am I right?
Alvy: Gimme a break...
Pedestrian: Dis guy's on television!!!
Alvy: I need the large polo mallet.
2nd man: Who's on television?
Pedestrian: Dis guy - on the Johnny Carson Show.
Alvy: Fellas, what is this? A meeting of the Teamsters?
2nd man: What program?
Pedestrian: Kineye 'ave your ortograph?
Alvy: You don't want my autograph.
Pedestrian: No, I do. It's for my girlfriend. Make it out to Ralph.
Alvy: Your girlfriend's name is Ralph?
Pedestrian: It's for my bruddah. ALVY SINGER!! HEY! THIS IS ALVY SINGER!!
[Annie arrives via taxi]
Alvy: Jesus, what did ya do? Come by way of the Panama Canal?
Annie: I'm in a bad mood, OK?
Alvy: Bad mood? I'm standing with the cast of The Godfather.
Annie: You're gonna have to learn to deal with it.
Alvy: I'm dealin' with two guys named Cheech.
Note: The in-joke is that Diane Keaton starred in "The Godfather". So "I'm standing with the cast of The Godfather" can be also taken literally.

View Quote Robin: There's Harry Drucker. He has a chair in history at Princeton. Oh, and the short man is Herschel Kominsky. He has a chair in philosophy at Cornell.
Alvy: Yeah. Two more chairs they got a dining room set...

View Quote Robin: What is so fascinating about a group of pituitary cases trying to stuff a ball through a hoop?
Alvy: What is fascinating is that it's physical. You know, it's one thing about intellectuals. They prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on. But on the other hand, the body doesn't lie, as we now know.
Robin: All you do is use your physical urges and sex to express hostility.
Alvy: 'Why do you always reduce my animal urges to psychoanalytic categories?' he said as he removed her brassiere.